His Lucky Day
by UnbirthdayGirl
Summary: What happens when you down an entire bottle of felix felicitas? Do you get the girl? James/Lily.


His Lucky Day

A/N:

Yes I know I'm incapable of finishing a story... But at least I'm still writing I guess. I started writing this one just after I saw the Half Blood Prince. Loved it, it was truly the most sexy, plotless film of the franchise yet. What with the implied naughties in the room of requirement between Harry and Ginny and Harry high on felix felictas, it got me thinking... What happens when you down an entire bottle of felix felicitas? Do you get the girl? James/Lily.

Pairing: J/L with hints of Si/L. I'm sort of addicted to Sirius/Lily so if you have any good recs, please pass them on.

(Now, in the fandom wiki, it says that the potion must brew for 6 months... but let's just ignore that part shall we...)

* * *

It was a Tuesday, in the first week of sixth year and one of those perfect days Summer had left behind. Groups of student were lazing about on the front lawn, book bags scattered and abandoned.

Lily was perched effortlessly in the pear tree outside the History of Magic classroom. She sat on the first branch, leaning against the trunk with her legs swinging gently. With each slow arch, her toes would graze the ground below. Somehow she still managed to make the whole effect look like she was sitting on a throne. Her friend Louisa was stretched out below her in a patch of sun, lying on her belly in the thick carpet of clover and flipping through a dogged eared magazine.

"...You answered mostly A's. Your ideal man is dark, brooding and mysterious. He is sensual lover whose greatest ambition in life is to drive you to the heights of passion..." The words struggled out through suppressed laughter and she peered up at her friend expectedly from the pages.

"Should I go on?"

"No need, Ladies. I'm here now. Drink it in."

Sirius Black towered over Louisa's supine form, casting a long shadow over the pages of the magazine.

James Potter seemed to materialise behind him. He propped himself up against the tree's branch lazily and turned towards Lily.

"Well, if it isn't the First Day of Christmas."

It had taken James the better part of twenty minutes to come up with this particular line. He was pretty proud of it actually. It seem to encompass all the things he wanted to say but couldn't: "It's-good-to-see-you-again," "You're-looking-well-rested," "How-was-your-summer," and "I'm-currently-picturing-you-completely-starkers", all while maintaining a necessary and appropriate distance in the case of abject rejection.

Not that he over-thought things.

Sirius didn't favour this type of approach. He usually just said whatever came into his head at any given moment. It was simultaneously his best and worst quality.

"Geez, Evans, I take my eyes off your boobs for all of one second and when I look back you're a C-cup."

It was true. Lily, who had always been willowy and slender, had developed some womanly curves over the summer and it hadn't escaped everyone's notice. Or Sirius' charming turn of phrasing.

"First of all Black, you're a pig and second, haven't you ever heard the expression 'a watched kettle never boils'"

She swung off the branch and landed lightly on her feet. She was looking at him primly, her lips pressed together in a sarcastic smile.

"Are you flirting with me Evans? You are!" Sirius roared, grinning like a madman.

The girls began to gather up their book bags. Louisa tried her best to hide her smirk as Lily scoffed disdainfully.

"Dream on."

James was smiling widely but he was desperately unnerved by the path the conversation had taken.

"So you've gone and got all sassy on us have you, Evans?" James asked, leering.

She threw him a withering stare and his confident smile faltered ever-so-slightly.

"I think that's downright mean of you Evans. James, here, has been steady in his chest-quest and hasn't looked at you at eyelevel since forth year. Can't you spare some of that smart lip for him?"

As if to respond, Lily raised one disdainful eyebrow and the girls sauntered off. Only Louisa looked back and shrugged at them laughingly.

* * *

The potions classroom wasn't considered one of the better classrooms. It had a low, uneven ceiling and no windows. There was always a damp chilliness in the air, even when the day was warm and a stagnant, acrid smell hung heavily, as though the stench of hundreds of years and thousands of congealing potions was seeping out the walls. Inexplicably too, an invisible snowstorm of dust was always silently raging which, despite students' best efforts, would always leave a light powdery film all over their clothes and belongings. And even though it was well known the class was difficult at the best of times, Slughorn didn't have a reputation for making things any easier.

Suffice to say, most normal, sane people had dropped Potions the first chance they got.

Lily wasn't one of them.

And apparently neither was James.

He watched her walk into the room, friendless and uncertain and then sit down two rows in front of him. She tried to make herself look busy, unpacking and arranging all her books and quills neatly on her workbench. Textbook Type A. Then, she pushed a nonexistent piece of her hair behind her ear six times. She did that when she was nervous.

It was getting a little ridiculous really, he thought. The fact that the simple act of watching her could fill him with something that the endless peroxide parade of girls couldn't. The way that he couldn't stop looking. Didn't want to stop looking. Didn't want to blink.

And she wanted him to look, that much was obvious.

That's why she had sat in front of him when she'd walked in, so he would be forced to stare at the back of her pretty little head, so when she moved the warm red cascade of her hair would shake as if to mock him, sending over wafts of her shampoo, filling his nostrils and his school slacks.

Then he was forced to stare at her as she discreetly rolled back her head and rubbed the back of her neck, working the muscles, the kinks, the knots, kneading the soft skin.

And then making him picture the slow, careful gait of her hand while writing out the last part of her homework notes, or maybe she was writing out all the naughty things she wanted to do to him, gripping the pen, moving her hand up and down the length, the tip saliva wet occupying the corner of her mouth, sucking, sliding, running her teeth gently over the rim.

He stood up suddenly (not without some difficulty) and strode purposefully over to her.

"Evans," his words were hot against the shell of her ear. "We have to stop meeting like this..."

"I agree. Leave me alone."

"And leave you without a partner for Potions... now what kind of a gentleman would I be if I did that?"

"A merciful one?" She offered sarcastically.

"Good afternoon students!" Slughorn announced theatrically from the doorway, "Please be seated, we've got a lot to get through today."

James parked himself loudly down on the seat next to Lily and turned to her, smirking as he shrugged. She rolled her eyes and he raised his eyebrows in challenge, as if daring her to gather up all her carefully laid out belongings and disrupt the class by moving seats. He grinned and picked up her quill, spinning it in his fingers.

"Today we will be brewing a very difficult potion. Usually, I save this for the end of the year, but as we have some uncommonly bright students in this class, I consider no time better than the present." Slughorn looked very pointedly at Lily before continuing, "The person who produces the best potion will be able to keep a small bottle of their endeavours. Now, can anyone tell me what Felix Felicitas is?"

Lily was too busy wrestling her quill out of James' hand and heard neither the praise nor the question. James had started drawing little hearts around their initials all over her textbook.

Slughorn looked over in her direction expectantly. Then to Severus in the corner, who seem equal parts revolted and transfixed by the scene playing out between Potter and Evans.

Frowning, he called on the only raised hand in the room, "Mr errr... Pettigrew, enlighten us?"

"It's bottled liquid luck, Professor."

"Quite right, Five points for Gryffindor."

Peter beamed.

"This particular potion was first brewed by the very gifted potioneer Arsenius Jigger in the year 1634... Jigger made it his life's work to distil the essence of good fortune. However, after his discovery, he was driven mad, the potion rendering him an addict, constantly craving the rush of adrenaline ... relentlessly trying to outrun death. It is a powerful potion and used recklessly, a deadly one. Therefore, I must urge extreme caution today. We have received special permission from the Ministry to brew this potion, as severe restrictions are placed on its use and trade. There will be grave consequences for anyone, other than the winner, caught smuggling out their brew.

He swept his eyes around the room to see if his words had their desired effect.

"I have written up the ingredients and brewing instructions on the board. You have 1 hour." With a flick of his wand, elaborate cursive began to fade into existence on the blackboard.

A hush had extended over the classroom. Potions, at this level, was notoriously full of high achievers who took their schooling very seriously. And today, there was much more on the line than a gold star and a pat on the head from their generously proportioned, self-important professor.

"So, did you have a good summer, Evans?"

James made no effort to keep his voice down. He had little interest in Potions. His only reason for taking the class was his not-so-quietly held belief that Slughorn was too in awe of his father to fail him. James was an arsehole like that. If he really thought about it, there was also the fact that Lily was an open target in Potions. All her friends were off painting their nails in Muggle Studies and so it was really the only opportunity he had to get her by herself. Not that she didn't make him work for that privilege.

"I had an excellent summer, Potter," she supplied without looking up from her cauldron. She was stirring it with great care and silently counted each rotation.

"Oh yeah? What did you do?"

"Managed to put 100 miles between myself and you," she deadpanned and looked up at him, smiling sarcastically.

"Absence made the heart grow fonder, didn't it?" He smiled widely back, holding her gaze.

"If by that you mean 3 months made me forget how annoying and slimy you can really be, then yes."

She broke contact quickly and began to gather her things. She picked up her caldron, taking care not to slosh the contents and scanned the room quickly. Snape was looking at her intensely. She caught his eye and regarded warily the only unclaimed seat at his workstation.

She seemed to consider her options and then marched over to Snape.

"Can I sit here?" she asked in a cold, business like tone.

He shrugged wordlessly, suddenly unable to meet her eye. She set her belongings down as he moved to the furthest reaches of the workstation.

She glanced back up at her vacated seat. She expected to meet his infuriating smirk; instead James had his head down and a hard blazing look of concentration on his face.

She watched him puzzled for a time before an angry bubbling drew her back to her potion and she peered nervously into her cauldron. Something had gone very wrong and she stirred the contents anxiously, her eyes searching for any small change or improvement. She felt along the workbench for her gardus root and her hand suddenly collided with another. Lily's eyes shifted nervously to their periphery. Snape had been using a small liquid dropper to add in two beads of runespoon venom. He had flinched as Lily's hands grazed his own and the entire contents of the dropper had emptied, slipping silently into the potion and immediately turning it from a sticky shiny gold to watery milky white. Snape made a exasperated noise but didn't acknowledge her.

The next hour went by agonizingly slow and no amount of attention could right the disaster that was her potion. Slughorn walked by her without a single comment and stood in front of the class.

"After some careful consideration, I am announcing two winners. Mr Potter and Mr Pettigrew, I couldn't distinguish between your potions. Use them wisely, use them sparingly and don't let me catch you boys fixing any Quidditch matches." Here, Slughorn laughed boisterously at his own clever joke.

Lily was watching James. He didn't seem to take any pleasure in this victory. She assumed he would want to lord it over her but he was staring at the tiny vial in his palm, trance-like and frowning.

* * *

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have more for you soon.


End file.
